There were alot of nations present at this first F16 World Championship: Australia, Belgium, Brazil, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland, United Kingdom and United States!
We had several boat types all trying as hard to win this event: AquaRaptor, Blade, Bimare, Falcon and Viper. There were a few one-up sailors too, fantastic job done by them, I couldn’t do it, I need the extra pair of hands on board!
Gill and I and Matt & Gina travelled to France on our National Holiday, July 21, we arrived late at the Falcon House and we needed some coffee to wake up the next day. Luckily it was a sunny day and we enjoyed rigging the boats up on the beach of the lake and we even went out in the late afternoon for a sail. We immediately found out that the yellow buoys mean that there is a shallow. Unfortunately we found out too late, so rudders clicked out and the spi had to be doused immediately, quick quick! Luckily we didn’t touch the daggerboards and we made it out of the shallow quick and without damage. Back to sailing the lake! Matt & Gina were fast with the kite up. Gill and I felt immediately that this would be a tough battle, they sailed away from us, unbelievable. We decided that beating them once during the entire race would be a cool goal for us.
On Saturday we had our boats measured, this took a while and in the mean time we just hung out at the beach. Weather was not really fine, some rain, not much sun, but other sailors were arriving and we had fun seeing familiar faces back and meeting new faces.
That evening we took everyone to the house and Paul & Ann and Geert & Joanna installed themselves in the other bedrooms. In the mean time we had new visitors: from lush Switzerland: Andi & Martin and Sandro & Philip. We invited them to camp their tent in our backyard together with Marc, Mandy & Johannes from Germany. Camp Falcon was born! For the whole week we stayed with 14 sailors in one house, crowed but very cool! We had breakfast together (Andi was our breakfast delivery guy, he apparently liked the French bakery a lot?!) and in the evenings after diner we could unwind a bit in the house, talking about sailing, sailing and sailing and our stories of that day.
Sunday morning we had a very interesting clinic, given by Matt McDonald. He talked about general upwind – downwind settings and trim. And then he added some very useful information about sailing on this particular lake of Maubuison, looking out for the wind, seeing the gusts, taking benefit from the wind changes. Everybody was listening intently and we all made mental notes of things not to forget while sailing. In the afternoon we could already test our new learnt capacities by sailing the Practice Race. Started at 3 PM, 1 race of 2 laps. We didn’t do well. Matt & Gina did but decided not to finish since finishing a practice race could mean bad luck later on…
Monday morning was the first day of the real F16 Worlds, start at 1 PM, bad weather, no sun, a lot of gusty wind, a difficult day to sail. But we managed ok. We sailed a 12 and a 15, very happy with that.
Unfortunately we had to retire from race 2 since something broke on our spin halyard. We raced back to shore (a long way), repaired the halyard and raced back. Ouf just in time for the start of the 3rd race. In the mean time we found out that Matt & Gina retired from racing. While back on the beach we saw Matt but no Gina? They were racing to the finish line of race 1 and they had a gust hit them, they pitched, and then it felt like they hit something and they went over. Gina fell into the daggerboard (we all know those hurt!) and Matt fell on top of her. Gina was in a lot of pain and couldn't stand on her leg. Luckily the club had a doctor present and they immediately took care of Gina, put ice on her big bruise and told her she tore a muscle so she had to rest for the rest of the day. So no more racing for Matt & Gina. They were really sad, coming over from Florida to sail and already been stopped after not finishing 1 race, there are better stories. So much for not finishing a practice race for good luck… We hoped Gina would rest well and be ok for the next days of sailing!
The other Falcon teams were happier with their first day of sailing. Paul & Ann scored a 16, 15 and 12. Andi & Martin a 9, 10 and 9. Marc & Johannes a 26, 22 and 20 and Geert & Joanna a 19, 16 and 17.
On Monday evening we had the country diner with some specialties of the participating countries. The drink Chris Sproat & Georgina Burk brought had a lot of success: the James Bond cocktail: Vodka-Martine with an olive, great! Hans Klok from Holland brought some candy, with anise in it, but well this wasn’t loved by everybody (remember the taste!?).
The social program of this event was well worked out. We had the country diner, an official dinner (with yummy duck), a pasta party and some cake with the price giving. We enjoyed hanging out at the club a lot although next time a bit less program could work ok also, so we could go out more and see the surroundings of the club. We only ate in 2 restaurants and we didn’t get to taste the lovely looking paella the Maubuison market proposed!
Day 2 of the Worlds and good news: Matt & Gina are back, yiha! Gina still feels a bit sore and her bruise is turning all kind of lovely colors, but she is able to sail. Instead of Go Pete, Go Gina! They score an 8 in the last race of that day, fighting their way back to the top. Geert and Joana also scored an 8 that day, in the first race. Andi and Martin are the more consistent good sailors right now, they scored a 11, 7 and a 15 today! It is difficult sailing on this lake, very shifty and gusty, you have to look out for the wind and tack and gybe a lot. Don’t just sail to the mark in 2 or 3 tacks like we are used to on the North Sea races!
Wednesday, day 3, the sun is out! Finally nice weather to sail. But the wind is so tough to read well. While Matt was struggling reading the shifts Gina told him that this is normal. You know the shifts are in French, so we don’t understand them! Hahaha! I don’t remember if this was our bad day or not, probably not but anyway on Tuesday or Wednesday we had a very bad day, not a happy boat, not a happy crew, not a happy skipper, a day not to remember. So we are moving on. Best results on this Wednesday were a 5 and 6 for Andi & Martin! An 11 for us and a 4, 8 and a 12 for Matt & Gina.
The 4th day of racing on Thursday was again a very lovely day to sail, it is so much nicer to sail with the sun out. We scored a 7 in the first race, adrenaline rush! This was a great day, we felt so good about this. Everything was right, we took the right shifts, boat speed was brilliant and we rocked :-) Matt & Gina did very well today, they scored a 6, a 5 and a 13 and were already ahead of us in the general ranking without having sailed the first 3 races! While the sun was out we decided to gather all the Falcons after the racing and shoot a cool movie while sailing with the kites up. We are still working on making the final cut, so stay tuned for a cool movie with 5 Falcons (we were the film crew while sailing our Falcon). The different spin colors make it a really nice colorful movie!
And then it was already Friday, the last day of the F16 Worlds. We had to get up at 7, ouch, racing started at 11 that day. But damn we should have slept a bit longer because there was no wind at all. It was a very warm sunny day tough, so relaxing and waiting on the beach was the back-up plan. Just when Ann and I had decided to go swimming in the lake the signals were made: racing is on, leave the beach. Hurry hurry to put the wetsuits on and of we go. Only 1 race of 3 laps was sailed this last day. We scored a 15, right behind Andi and Matt who scored a 12 and an 11.
Final results can be found here: Results F16 Worlds 2011 France
Falcon results:
9 – Andi&Martin – SUI1
14 – Matt&Gina – USA208
15 – Gill&Kathleen – BEL666
17 – Geert&Joanna – NED237
21 – Paul&Ann – GBR207
29 – Marc&Johannes – GER002
After the price giving we went out to eat at a nice ocean view restaurant. We had a big menu with great food and nice Rosé wine. The racing was over, but the holiday still had one great evening left before we had to drive home. Thanks to everybody for making this a great event, we enjoyed it very much and we hope to see everybody again at a next Worlds or other event!
